


Diagnosed as Sound

by shinodabear



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, post-ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 03:43:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinodabear/pseuds/shinodabear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fear is only a word, and words cannot hurt him. Or so he tells himself.   [Post-Hounds of Baskerville]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diagnosed as Sound

**Author's Note:**

> For Vivian, who asked so kindly for more.

It is a four letter word consisting of, in order, a voiceless labiodental fricative, a high front unrounded vowel, and a voiced retroflex alveolar liquid; a simple combination of sounds that result in [fir]. This sound has a meaning. To this meaning people ascribe an emotion that manifests physiologically in increased heart rate, sweat, increased respiration, dilated pupils, muscle tension, and paling of the skin and psychologically in the response of fight or flight.

It is fear. 

He is afraid. 

Of what? The devil that night? In Dewer's Hollow? There is no such thing as the devil. It is just a name, just a name and a face in the dark. He wouldn't trust what he had heard or what he had seen. There is no such thing as giant glowing hounds, as hounds of hell, no such thing as the devil, as evil. 

"Sherlock?" John asks for the twelfth time, and, for the twelfth time, Sherlock ignores him. The compound is out of his system and has been for a better part of the week, but still there is that edge to his consciousness, the taut pull of anxiety that makes him jump at every creak and turn at every moving shadow. There are still the dreams. 

"Sherlock!"

John goes ignored.

The dreams are a valid response to the trauma experienced in Dartmoor. He is not bothered by them because they are natural coping responses. In his dreams, the voice calls to him. Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock. In the light of morning, [ʤIm mɔriɑrti] is nothing but a collection of sounds, a name, and words cannot hurt him. 

"Sherlock," John says for the fourteenth time, but this time his words are accompanied by actions. John deposits the laptop in front of him. It's John's blog. Boring. It's an entry with a video. "Hello Boys!" Not boring. He focuses on the missing comma in the subject line, and ignores the way John's shaking hand reaches over and presses play. 

"Who lives in a house like this," Jim Moriarty asks.

They're only words, only sounds, but they may as well be made of sticks and stones. His heart rate increases. His muscles tense. He recognizes the urge to jump up and run. 

It is fear. 

He is afraid.


End file.
